


it's bad enough just getting old

by aceofdiamonds



Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 03:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6222592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a story of loss and of moving on and then of being found again and trying to process that</p><p>Robin's dead, see. Only it's not just Robin. It's Dick, too. It's Wally's best friend, the kid who did three somersaults across the floor the first time they met, the one with his whelms and his traughts, and now Wally is overwhelmed and distraught and Robin isn't here to say anything about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's bad enough just getting old

**Author's Note:**

> i started this so long ago, 2013 i think, and coming back to it i've forgotten little details of the young justice universe so basically i've done what i want with this with no respect to canon or things like when dick actually becomes nightwing or how static the members of young justice are. also suspended belief is required in regards to dick's disappearance and the period of not contacting wally -- this is a look at wally grieving and then suddenly not and having to work with that, it's less about the actual details of the fake death. this is becoming a long list of excuses, so, the title is from diane young by vampire weekend

 

 

Robin dies on a Friday. 

Dick doesn't. 

No one else knows that. No one but Bruce and Alfred. Well, and Dick of course. 

To Wally, Robin dies on a Friday, and the world somehow keeps turning. It feels darker, duller, but it turns, same as before. 

Batman takes some time out. It's understandable. He was the one there after all, the one Robin was trying to save when he leapt off that building. Survivor's guilt, that's what they call it. Wally has it too and he wasn't even there. 

On top of all that Batman is Bruce Wayne and Robin is Dick Grayson: his ward, his son. People forget about that sometimes. 

 

.

  


When they get the news they're just off a mission, gathered in the mountain. Robin hadn't been with them, he'd been with Batman, with the Joker. They usually all meet up again, sometimes in the middle of the night with the adrenaline still pulsing through their bodies and their masks sticking to their faces, but Superman's calling a meeting, claims everyone is present, and Robin isn't here yet. 

Batman isn't, either. That's why Clark is leading this one. It doesn't click with any of them, except maybe Kaldur, because he's always a step ahead. 

Clark's face is grave when he tells them and then Wally can't hear anything at all because there's this roaring in his ears, he thinks it might be his heart telling him everything is all wrong, no one knows what they're talking about. He watches Clark's mouth move, silent, sees the rest of the group react with tears and clenched fists, and then he feels his knees hit the floor. 

There's a hand on his back, small, trembling. Artemis. He shrugs her off, immediately regrets it, and then Barry is helping him up, leading him along the corridor, away. 

 

.

 

Robin's dead, see. Only it's not just Robin. It's Dick, too. It's Wally's best friend, the kid who did three somersaults across the floor the first time they met, the one with his whelms and his traughts, and now Wally is overwhelmed and distraught and Robin isn't here to say anything about it. 

They have a funeral, just them, because they're still trying to keep Dick's identity a secret to protect Batman, like any of that matters. It's like no one will notice when Bruce Wayne disappears for months and months, locked up in that big house that Dick took Wally to once, grieving the ward the public loved and now never sees. ( _Isn’t it odd,_ they say, _that Dick Grayson hasn’t been seen for weeks and Batman’s left the skies empty?_ But if anyone connects the dots they don’t say, and that’s enough for the moment.)

Kaldur says a few words while Megan cries into Conner's shoulder, Artemis standing off to the side with her hands twisting and twisting in front of her, and to Wally this feels like the beginning of the end. 

 

.

 

(This is a job they take up (or are thrust into, if you’re referring to one of the ones born with the abilities to save the world) with the knowledge that it’s dangerous and risky and that death is never as far away as their fairy tales always told them but it’s not until it hits them right in their centre that anyone thinks back to this warning and begins to believe it.)

 

.

 

Wally goes along to a drug raid a week later despite everyone insisting he doesn't need to, he can have some more time. He doesn't think he wants more time, though, he thinks he wants to be out there, doing what Robin did, like that'll be the way to make things better.

He slips up in the middle of the fight, gets injured, and that's him out for a couple of weeks, maybe more. Physical injuries heal quicker than those in the brain, everyone says silently, especially with Wally’s speed. 

With his arm in a sling he can't do much but sit and watch TV and all that's on is daytime movies with sobbing wives and chiseled husbands with affairs on the side. He alternates between texting the group every two minutes and ignoring them for long enough that Barry comes home with demands to let them know he's still alive. 

It stings. He's still alive and Dick isn't, is the thing. Wally's not even taking advantage of that. 

 

.

 

It's been four months now and no one looks so sad all the time. It's getting a little easier, less like a punch to the throat every time they have a meeting and there's no piping up with wild suggestions and better battle plans, and Wally begins to think about life after. 

He throws himself into Kid Flash. He studies more at school, at training, as though becoming a more educated version of himself will help anything. He learns every chemical element on the periodic table and all the details of the wars that have rocked the world. He works on vibrating through walls so hard he feels like he's still shaking when he finally goes home at night. He feels focused and that helps take the edge off a little. 

"We're going to go catch a movie, Wally, you want to come?" Artemis asks after training. One of them asks every time and he doesn't think twice before saying no, thanks, but he has to work/study/patrol. He'll go soon, tomorrow maybe.

He doesn't go tomorrow.

But he goes the next week, following them out the door and down to the diner along the street. There's laughing and talking and Wally is glad he's here because this is his team, he shouldn't throw that away when they lose someone.

Things get better from then.

Not a _lot_ better, but it's an improvement.

 

.

 

Somehow two years pass. Things stay the same. Wally still finds everything that little bit duller, that space inside of him always there. He thinks it’ll be this way for the rest of his life.

Superheros aren’t supposed to have long lives, there’s been evidence of that right here in the group, maybe Wally won’t have to feel like this forever.

 

.

 

So it’s been two years and things are the same: fighting muggers, aliens, big men with big guns and small minds, and then Conner spots someone one night, a black figure high on the rooftops of New York, and everyone wonders who this new player is, the one who seems to be on their side but never gets near enough for them to see his face, who he is, why he’s here.

Artemis thinks he’s a spy because Artemis thinks most people are spies, Megan doesn't see the harm if they're doing the same thing they are, while Conner and Kaldur both agree they should at least be told his name and his purpose.

Wally watches the figure dart across a building, swinging down onto the bank below. He holds his breath when the figure flips in mid-air and lands gracefully, familiar, and he pushes away the twist of missing and loss.

A couple of weeks later his lab partner asks if he wants to catch a movie some time. He thinks for a second then remembers he's supposed to be moving on, that a best friend dying two years ago shouldn't be holding back his whole life. He says yes.

 

.

 

Maddie is funny and smart and it's not hard for Wally to spend time talking to her, kissing her, holding her hand sometimes in the hallways. Artemis makes light jabs about speed and stamina, Kaldur biting back a grin while Megan and Conner look on vaguely confused. Everything about it is so utterly _normal_ that Wally clings to it.

They've been together for going on three months when superheroes are brought up as a conversation topic after Superman shows up on the news holding a car above his head in a cliched but ridiculously realistic move. Wally holds his breath and tries not to let it out too loudly when Megan tells him she thinks it's all a ruse orchestrated by the government. I mean, think about it logically, Wally, people can't really fly or vibrate through walls. That car stunt is clearly a trick of the light and some fancy camera work.

Wally fights against everything telling him to get out now and sticks around for another couple of months. It's hard, though, when you have to come up with dental excuses every time he has to miss a date due to league business and your girlfriend is constantly undermining the whole point of your existence -- she doesn’t _know_ she’s doing that to Wally personally, but still. In the end he tells her he's just not in the place for a relationship anymore, sorry. The door slamming coincides with his comm beeping with an alien invasion on the other side of town so it doesn't hurt as badly as maybe it should.

It's weird because Maddie had been nice and he really liked her for a while but when it's over all he feels is relief and guilt for keeping it going for so long.

His new lab partner breathes through his nose and copies Wally's answers.

 

.

 

He feels guilty sometimes for being the one to monopolise grief for Dick. Sure, he’s almost completely fine now, but there are still moments when they’re out on a mission and he waits for Robin to swing in and take out the guy Wally is working on, the two of them clasping hands in a high-five, and Wally feels the weight of his loss like a punch to the stomach. But Artemis sometimes goes quiet and doesn’t speak for hours at a time and it’s obvious she’s thinking about the loss of their teammate and other times Kaldur and Conner will sit and talk about Dick in a way that makes him sound like a legend from a time before they were born, gone before they could really know him. Megan’s the most open about it. Every now and when they’re sitting in base watching TV she’ll say something about Dick’s thoughts on the show and then she’ll say again how brave he was, how brave they all are, and it’s a nice sentiment but the past tense is always so fucking jarring.

 

.

 

There's a knock at his window one night after he's unwinding after patrol with late night _Friends_ reruns and only one person ever knocks at his window like that and that person is dead so who can blame him for almost jumping out of his skin.

He picks up the baseball bat everyone laughs at for keeping behind his door and moves towards the knocking which is getting more insistent and more like --

"What the _fuck_?"

"Hi to you too, KF," Dick says and then he grins, wide and easy, and Wally can _feel_ his sanity slipping further and further away from him. "Been a long time."

This is his best friend and he's supposed to be _dead_ , so, when Wally punches him he doesn't feel as guilty as he probably should.

"What the fuck?" he says again, because that feels like the only logical reply.

The person swaying on the fire escape in front of him is taller, broader, older, but the curve of his mouth is the same when he smiles and he sounds just like the best friend Wally used to have three years ago. "I'm... not dead?"

Wally takes a step back, then takes another, and doesn't say anything when Dick follows him in, his long legs folding easily into the room. There's a scar on his cheek, white with age. It wasn't there when Wally last saw him.

"How'd that happen?" he finds his voice to ask, pointing at the mark.

"This?" Dick fingers the scar, runs his hand from his eyebrow to the edge of his mouth, and sighs. "Who do you think?"

"The _Joker_ ? Dick, you've gotta tell me what's going on here. It's been _three years_."

Dick pulls at his t-shirt, his body almost vibrating with the urge to move around. Wally used to have to press a hand gently on his shoulder, on his neck, to calm him down. Dick would do the same to him, always knowing when the other needed. They've always been craving movement the two of them. That was one of the reasons they got on so well, Wally thinks. That, and they were the only two who liked video games and eating doughnuts until they were sick. Even Superboy couldn't keep up with them on their most ambitious days.

"It's a long story," Dick says, not flinching when Wally snaps out a "yeah i've got time." His hair is different, longer in the front, dipping into his eyes. Wally spares a second to wonder what he must look like to his old best friend -- older, more world weary. "Batman decided -- Batman and _I_ decided -- that Robin was getting too old, I wasn't needed as much anymore, so --"

"So he told us you were dead? Yeah, solid plan."

"I went up to New York to take care of things up there under a new name --"

"Wait. _You're_ the masked vigilante in New York?"

Dick rubs the back of his neck, his t-shirt slipping to reveal another scar, this one jaggy and fresh. "Yeah. That's me."

"I knew it." Those times he got close enough to watch the figure -- _Dick_ \-- there were so many similarities in the way they moved it couldn't all be brought down to coincidence. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I wanted to but you were all doing well yourselves --"

"I wasn't."

"No but you were getting there. I saw you move through a wall, that's great, Wally."

"Where are you staying? Not the manor?"

"No. Not there. Look, I can't tell you. I wish I could, KF, but I'm not even supposed to be here."

"So why are you here, Dick? If you can't say anything? What's the point?"

"I wanted to see you. I've missed you."

And Wally is so close to holding back, to spitting out something bitter, but instead he feels his mouth pulling into a smile, so happy that his best friend is right here in front of him and not dead in a grave at the Wayne Manor. “I’ve missed you too, man.”

The scar on Dick’s face contorts and twists when Dick grins in return. “So, are you going to invite me into your bachelor pad or not?”

“Hey, I could have had someone over here for all you knew,” Wally says belatedly. “How was I supposed to explain Robin resurrected knocking at my window?”

“I’m not Robin anymore,” is all Dick says to that.

“Yeah I noticed. So, who are you?”

Dick fingers the stripes on his dark blue suit, running his finger down to his wrist. “Nightwing.”

“What kind of bird is that?” and snorts when Dick flips him off on his way inside.

This is when Wally remembers that in everything he’s forgotten the most important part and so, quick enough to make Dick stumble, he pulls him in for a hug because it’s been three years and however angry he is that Dick’s not been dead all these years and not told him about it -- _Dick’s not been dead for all these years_ , he’s alive and he’s real and Wally squeezes him tighter at all the time he’s missed.

“You’re squashing me, buddy,” Dick says into Wally’s shoulder but he hugs him back, arms wrapping around his waist. “I’m sorry for leaving,” he adds, voice quiet.

“I missed you, dude,” Wally replies, gruff and so strong, believe him.

“Next time Batman asks me to fake my death I’ll tell him to stick it up his ass, alright?”

“Like you would say that to Batman,” Wally says dismissively, but he appreciates the gesture. “But thanks.”

He holds on for a few seconds later before he lets go. Dick drops onto the couch like he’s been coming over every night, patting the cushion beside him. “Sit down, Wally, you look exhausted.”

“That’s rude,” Wally mumbles, annoyed at the yawn threatening to break free. He needs this time; he needs to hear all about Dick’s three years away and he needs to tell him all about his own.

“C’mon, you look dead on your feet, is that better?”

“Not funny,” but Wally obliges and falls onto the couch, his legs flopping over Dick’s and his head settling onto the arm rest.

He falls asleep to Dick’s quiet laughter at the TV.

 

.

 

"Hey," Dick whispers, a couple of hours later. "Wally."

Wally opens his eyes slowly, just in case he's in an asylum somewhere. It’s more plausible than he would like to think about. "What?"

“I’ve got to go. Crime calls.”

“Don’t pick up,” Wally tries, words slurring together through his fatigue.

Dick snickers and he feels a swell of triumph somewhere in his chest. It’s quelled by Dick’s smile bending into a frown, the scar at the corner of his mouth tugging with the muscles, disappearing into the laughter lines that look out of place on Dick’s older, tireder, face.

"Wally,” he says, urgent. “You can't tell anyone about this, about me."

Wally sits up too fast. He clutches his hair and tries to work out a few minutes too late if this is a dream or not, and then he feels a sharp pinch at his side.

"It's not a dream, Wally. I'm back. You just can't tell anyone you've seen me for a while. I'm sorry for doing this to you, Wally, all of it, but you need to do this. For Batman."

Which bursts the wall of anger that has been stacking up inside Wally alongside the joy and surprise. "Oh, how can I possibly refuse a request of Batman's after he let me believe for years that _my best friend was dead_."

Dick drops a hand on his shoulder, his thumb on Wally's neck. The look he gives him when Wally can bring himself to look up is full of a sympathy that makes Wally want to punch him again. "He means well."

"He's brainwashed you, Dick," Wally spits out and yeah, that's a step too far, he should take it back, but Dick is still giving him that look and he's moving back to the window, reunion over. The sun is just beginning to rise, bursts of red stretching across the sky, and from here it frames the dark edges of Dick perfectly. "Are you coming back to --?" _See me_.

Dick smiles, suddenly looking just like Wally remembers. "I'll be in touch. See you, West."

 

.

 

He gets questioned about the smile on his face, the little spring in his step, which is understandable considering he hasn't done much of either for the last three years.

"Just feel different, that's all," he tells Kaldur, who smiles back and says he's glad to hear it.

If he felt guilty before for taking all of the grief for Dick and burrowing himself in it now he feels selfish and wrong for keeping the fact that Robin is alive a secret from his teammates but he’s promised Dick, and by extension he’s promised Batman, and it might make him a coward but he can’t go against Batman, not with so much at stake. For all that he’s done he trusts him.

 

.

 

"So what've I missed?"

The figure -- Nightwing. _Dick_ \-- was seen that night, flying through the sky. He had met up with them down at the harbour just in time to take down the big-scale drug deal going on in one of the old sailing boats but had been gone again before anyone could get a good look at him. Wally had speculated along with the rest of them, leaning heavily on Megan's theory that he was an alien from a galaxy near her own. When Conner had been suspicious about the lack of information they actually knew about him Wally had suggested that maybe he was shy.

That figure of mystery is now sprawled on Wally’s couch, the remains of three apples beside him as he works through his fourth.

"Nothing."

"Nothing happening in Gotham in three years? I find that hard to believe."

"Didn't Bruce keep you up to date?" Wally still respects Batman, he is his boss after all, and he's really fucking amazing at what he does, but he doesn't like Bruce Wayne anymore. “Don't you talk?”

"Bruce isn't going to tell me about Megan and Conner, is he? C'mon, KF, tell me the gossip."

“That’s all you care about after all this time? If Megan and Conner are together?” Wally asks sullenly. He’s still working through Dick being back after spending all that time thinking he was dead. It’s not as easy as it looks, falling back into the easy rhythm they had, as much as Wally wishes it could be, and as much as Dick acts like it. He was the one that left, anyway, so he doesn’t get a say in how Wally’s handling his return.

Dick shrugs at the question. “It’s a dark, bleak world out there, Wally. More interesting to talk about the happier parts when we can, isn’t it?” which is such a similar thing to what he would’ve said before. “Unless you want to discuss Scarecrow’s latest move and whether --”

“Alright, fine,” Wally says, holding up his hands. “They’re doing fine.”

“Fine. I could’ve gotten that out of Bruce,” Dick scoffs.

“Kaldur’s seeing someone,” Wally offers.

“Have you met them?”

“No. I think he’s embarrassed of us,” Wally says, memories of Kaldur shoving his phone in his pocket whenever it pinged to stop anyone leaning over his shoulder. “Artemis has plans of turning up on one of their dates in costume and forcing him into indurcing us but Megan has morality issues with plan.”

“I would suggest following them but I’m betting Megan would also have moral qualms about that,” Dick laughs. “How have they all been?” He asks, as though he hasn’t asked almost every time he’s seen Wally in the last three weeks. “I miss them.”

“When do you think Bruce will let you come by?”

Dick lifts a shoulder in a shrug and then winces, the stitches from his latest hit barely holding him together. “He’s got a plan,” is all he says, grimacing apologetically at the scowl Wally shoots him.

“His last plan worked out _great_ ,” Wally says, ducking the gentle punch Dick sends his way. “Fine, sorry, I’ll stop.”

“No you won’t,” Dick replies, “But it’s fine, I get it. You heading back out?”

Wally adjusts his mask back over his eyes, makes sure the rest of his gear is where it should be, and nods. “Yeah, you?”

“I’ll do a circuit and then I’ll head to bed.” He yawns then, loud and obnoxious. “Might see you out there, KF,” and then they both climb out the window, Wally dropping down the stories as Dick rises above him to the roof, and they go their separate ways.  

 

.

 

"They're talking about replacing you. Batman, I mean."

"I know," Dick says like the idea of someone else in the Robin costume doesn't fill him with rage. "Nice kid."

"You've _met_ him?" Now Dick is looking at Wally like his head isn't entirely screwed on right which is the opposite way this conversation should be going. "I mean, you're okay with it?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I have Nightwing now; Batman needs someone by his side. Jason seems more than up to the job -- hey, did you hear how he met Bruce?"

Wally shakes his head, completely lost.

"He was stealing the tyres off of the _Batmobile_. Do you want to order something? I'm starving."

"Yeah, okay, what? There's a Chinese down the street that does good sweet and sour." Dick wrinkles his nose. Wally can see the 13 year old do the exact same. He wonders what the new one will do, how his quirks and tricks will fit in with the group. Then his mind circles back to what Dick just said. "Wait -- he stole the tyres from the _Batmobile_ so Bruce _offered him a job_?"

Dick grins like it's the greatest thing he's ever heard. "Of course he did. Bruce can't refuse something like that. You know what he told me? That it shows _intuition_. Unbelievable. Anyway, Wally, I think you'll like him. He's funny."

"He won't be you," Wally offers. He's been entirely too blunt with his emotions tonight.

"No, he won't," Dick agrees. "But I'll be here, Wally." His tone softens. "I'm not leaving you again."

But that’s a stupidly huge and impossible promise to make because death is possible in this line of work, where they fight aliens and monsters and humans with distorted souls, and Wally knows now that it’s wrong to think they can live forever like they did when they were kids and thrumming with magic and power. He knows that death can come, that it can snatch people away from under you so you feel like the world has ended and left you here alone on Earth, and he knows that if that happens that, in time, he can grow with the grief and the memories and they can make him stronger.

That’s too much for him at the moment, and so he slings an arm around Dick’s shoulders and tugs him into a hug that has Dick toppling into him from the abruptness of it. “Thanks for not being dead,” he says, his mouth smushed into Dick’s cheek.

“Same to you,” Dick replies, which is something Wally hasn’t thought about. For all that he’s thought about death and the proximity of it to his life, he hasn’t ever stopped to consider the fact that he’s made it through eighteen years alive, and that’s something to remember. “With Jason almost up and running as the new Robin Bruce says I can come visit the team tomorrow.”

“Should I act surprised to see you?”

Dick does an exaggerated grimace. “I’ve seen your acting, dude -- you’re not great.”

“Don’t be a dick, _Dick_.”

“Ha ha,” Dick deadpans. “I’ve never heard that one before,” and then he’s wriggling out of Wally’s hug and capturing him in a headlock which results in both of them descending into sloppy rough housing and gasping laughter.

 

.

 

Life goes back to normal after death, Wally has learned. You take the time you need to adapt to this new world without the person in it and you build your life around the hole they left. It’s somehow harder when they come back. You have to reshape your life yet again, that the last three years haven’t been the way you thought and that you learned what grief is for nothing, all the while floating on this overwhelming wave of relief that they’re back at all. There's a lesson here about not putting too much of your happiness on one person but Wally doesn't care for that. 

It's hard but it's worth it when Dick falls back into his life and Wally's world, although it's never stopped turning, although he's achieved so much in the past three years, it brightens again, just a little, just enough for him to blink in the brightness of the sun when he steps outside.

 

 

 


End file.
